The First Snowfall
by kissmekvothe
Summary: Working title: Ball Is Life The first snowfall brings new life to The University each year. Can it do the same for a teacher and student growing apart? Or could this seeming end really mean a new beginning for something more? Elodin and Kvothe spend a moment together atop the Medica and the winter begins to set in.


The first snow always made the world beautiful. Clinging to the rooftops and chimneys, blanketing the browned leaves on the lawns, and turning the trees to stark, black skeletons in an ocean of white. The University seemed new again, a soft, strange dream world that glistened even in the dull evening light. Still, the students paid little mind to it, laughing and talking the same as they always did as the evening classes let out. Most of them walked through the snowfall oblivious, careless rows of footprints, grey in the white, as they walked home in twos and threes.

From the roof of the Medica, Elodin watched them with only marginally more interest. He held a snowball between his hands, turning it slowly and murmuring. After some time he looked down at it, carefully scraping a layer of flakes from the outside before groaning and breaking it in two. In the very center was a very small sphere of ice, perfectly round and clear but tiny nonetheless. He could do better. Elodin tossed it aside and began another, packing the snow more tightly. It was possible to will snow into ice. It could even be simple if you began with the slushy, tired snow of late winter. But that ice would be tired too, dull and full of clouds. The first snow was brightest, lively and wild, it's ice brilliant and sparkling, if one had the skill to tame it. Of course, it would still melt just the same as any ice, but it was the challenge that made it worth doing.

Again Elodin held the snowball before him, whispering to it, willing it to flow and reform. He closed his eyes, speaking faster and leaning over his work. At length, he felt a smoothness through his gloves, and fell silent, slowly opening his eyes. Elodin grinned, turning the ice in his hands with a pleased chortle. He held it up very carefully; the sphere was big as an apple and twice as smooth. A perfect crystal ball, it's transparent center flashed in the budding street lamps, little shooting stars that dashed and spun as he turned it.

A bright, blazing red danced suddenly among the lights, a sun to the tiny sky, before disappearing just as fast. Startled from his revery, Elodin looked back to the path below, seeking the wayward sun. Sure enough, there was Kvothe, rushing somewhere he oughtn't be no doubt, his fiery hair dancing in his haste and the evening wind.

 _"Hullo!"_ Called Elodin, adding a wave with his free hand, though Kvothe seemed entirely distracted. _"Kvothe!"_

It was a reckless whim that made him throw the ice ball, and he regretted losing it nearly as soon as it left his hand. It had been such a pretty one, and so large. Large enough, he realized guiltily, to crack a person's skull open if given some speed, such as, say being thrown from the roof of a building. But, by luck, it only thunked heavily against Kvothe's shoulder, prompting him to lurch forward and spin around, scanning the street.

 _"Up here!"_ Elodin said, smiling and waving again.

 _"Master Elodin?"_ Kvothe was rubbing his shoulder. _"What was that for?"_

 _"A test, of your reflexes. Constant vigilance, Kvothe, it's very important in these dark times."_

" _Indeed, Master."_ Kvothe smiled patiently and turned to keep walking, when Elodin called out again.

 _"Would you bring that back here please? It's in your hood there, yes."_

Kvothe pulled the ice from the folds of that shadowy cloak of his and nodded, pulling his arm back and taking aim.

 _"No! NO! Don't throw it! Are you trying to kill me?" Exclaimed Elodin. " Just carry it, alright? Gently. Up here. No, don't touch it so much, you'll melt it!"_

 _"Alright, hold on_ " Kvothe's uninjured shoulder slumped in irritation and Elodin could see him roll his eyes even at this distance. Nonetheless, Kvothe called a crisp zephyr to cradle the orb, safely levitating it several inches above his hand, steady despite the growing wind as he made his way across the lawn. It took him a bit to clamber up the building one handed, and Elodin heard a few muttered obscenities as he took the ice from him, feeling the breeze die off, before reaching down to help him onto the roof.

 _"Oh you cracked it!"_ Elodin sighed, inspecting the new fissure in the ice. " _I always knew you were hard headed but-"_

" _It didn't hit me in the head."_ Kvothe said as he sat down beside him. _"Lucky for you. They'd have been pretty cross with you down there if it had."_ He looked down at the Medica, one hand hovering at his bruised shoulder.

 _"Sorry about that. I could put some ice on it if you like?"_ Elodin quipped, holding out the sphere.

 _"No! No more ice"_ laughed Kvothe, ducking out of his reach. For a few minutes they simply sat like that, the hushed night sounds of the university surrounding them without notice, while Kvothe caught his breath and moved just a small bit closer again. Which, Elodin at least, did notice, quite a bit. He pretended he didn't, and tried to look like he was focused on making another snowball. He should say something, he thought, some cryptic question or riddle to make Kvothe think. Make him stay a while longer before he darted off again to whatever quest was keeping him away lately.

Although, thought Elodin; "lately" was not entirely true. Kvothe lived his whole life as a series of quests. Go here, find this, learn that, bed her, if he wasn't in pursuit of something, well, he just wouldn't be Kvothe. The University was Elodin's life, as it was for most of the Masters, but for Kvothe it was just a part, another goal, and another path to other aims. Of course that had been why he sought Elodin in the first place, naming, he'd taken an interest in that, set his sights on wind for whatever reason. Privately, Elodin thought it more fitting that he should choose fire, something useful, and more in his nature. But he'd done his best to teach him, and Kvothe had managed it, the little trick with the ice ball earlier was proof enough of that. He'd caught the name of the wind and finally managed to keep it under his tongue, another success. Now he was on to other things, things that kept him hurrying across the grounds at twilight, and he had no more need of Elodin.

 _"Is that how you did it?"_ Kvothe was at his side now _"prolonged compression?"_ Elodin realized he had been nearly throttling the snowball for several minutes.

 _"Ah, Kvothe, I continue to pray that your methods with women are not so artless as your grasp of naming. What true lady could be charmed by mere brute force?"_

Kvothe snickered in the way which, Elodin had learned, always meant he was about to launch into another bawdy anecdote _"Actually this one time, with the Adem-"_

 _"It's a metaphor, Kvothe."_ Elodin cut him off. _"Words, there is the real power, you must speak to the snow. Guide it, don't force it, to ice."_

 _"It's like the bucket then_." Kvothe said, slightly crestfallen. They'd spent an afternoon the previous month, Kvothe with his hands tied behind his back, coughing and sputtering as Elodin threw bucketfuls of water at him in hopes that, under duress he'd find the name of water and manage to stop at least one of the torrents before it hit him. He never did.

 _"This is different."_ Elodin tried to assure him, pushing the snowball into his hands. _"It wants to melt, and to freeze. You only need to help it."_

Kvothe nodded and looked down at the ball, holding it out in front of him and beginning to speak under his breath before closing his eyes and continuing, trying to keep focus. Elodin watched the snowball, waiting, wishing for something to happen, for several minutes. Kvothe's voice grew slightly louder and Elodin looked to him, his eyes still closed, brows furrowed in concentration. Flakes of snow clung to his hair, momentary specklings of white against the warm, shimmering red. It made a perfect inverse to his face, with the wild pattern of freckles, still darkened from the autumn sun, that swirled over his fair cream-white skin.

The red was winning, not only from the increasing freckles and the spotty blush caused by the cold wind, but also along his recently sharpened jawline, where the beginnings of a beard, the same vivid color as his hair, were starting to show. It made him look much older, as if more than a mere year and a half had passed between him and that scrawny, eager street rat that had followed Elodin to the roof of Haven.

 _"Have you ever considered shaving?"_

Kvothe looked up suddenly, disorientation quickly turning to bemusement at the random question.

 _"I have,"_ He chuckled, running a hand over his cheek. _"But Laurel likes me this way. Speaking of which-"_ He stood up hurriedly, checking the sun. _"I think I'm late. Thanks for trying, Master, I'll get it next time."_ He tossed the snowball back to Elodin as he hurried back down the side of the building. _"See you in class!"_

Elodin opened his mouth to reply but decided against it, having nothing prepared to say anyway. He watched as Kvothe rushed off, a flash of red and black in the swirling snow, then disappeared altogether. Elodin sighed, he knew Kvothe too well to be put off by his sudden exit. But the roof certainly did seem a lot lonelier now. He rolled the ball between his hands as he debated whether to head home or not. Then a patch of snow peeled off, followed by another. He brushed off the remaining snow and smiled, a perfect little ice sphere, just about the size of an egg, though round. He couldn't help but feel proud of his student. That boy certainly had a gift.


End file.
